NEW YORK—Yancy Gates was back at the podium, and when the light hit just right it sure looked as if tears were leaking from the corners of his eyes.

Mick Cronin was up there, too, only this time, rather than delivering a powerful statement about how his players had failed to conduct themselves like men, he glowed with pride.

It doesn’t seem possible that here is the same coach, the same players and the same university that only in December had been thick in the middle of one of the most shameful full-on brawls in some time. The fallout from it decimated a program still trying to wipe off the stench from bad acts years ago, and after suspending four players it wouldn’t have been unusual if everyone involved spent the ensuing months dressed in black hoodies, praying they weren’t recognized.

Instead, and in an occurrence highly unanticipated, the Cincinnati Bearcats have for the first time advanced to the Big East tournament championship game. On Saturday they’ll play Louisville, and it seems a fine time to nod again at Cronin and everyone at UC for taking that horrendous act and mending it by doing the right thing.

The No. 4-seeded Bearcats throttled top-seeded Syracuse from the opening tip at Madison Square Garden Friday night. UC raced to an early lead, and then stretched it to 17, and someone who wasn’t aware of how low this Cincinnati team had fallen just a few months ago might have thought this was merely quite an upset in the making.

And then the Orange opened the second half with a furious press, and started shooting the ball like a team ranked No. 2 in the nation ought to shoot, rattling the Bearcats. But there is tough and there is tough, something the UC players learned when their disgrace went viral. For months since, they’ve been on the hard end of some vicious chants, and been called some awful things, and they deserved it all because that crosstown fight with Xavier won’t ever completely disappear from the public psyche.

But it doesn’t have to completely define the Bearcats; Cronin has made them understand that. So a team that one night earlier made 2-of-21 3-pointers against Georgetown took that stat and throttled it, by letting treys fly. The Bearcats put clamps on their zone defense, straightened their spines more than seemed physically possible and refused to bend. For every Syracuse double-team or basket, UC had a huge, louder answer.

When it was over, when Cincinnati had handed the Orange only their second loss of the season in front of a stunned packed house, Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim kept staring at the scoreboard as if it couldn’t be right.

Cincinnati 71, Syracuse 68. Nope, no malfunction here.

Perhaps Boeheim was still hypnotized by this rare blip, this odd mark against his team’s 31 wins, because he took a ridiculously long time to reach the postgame news conference. When he finally did step in front of the cameras, he had decided it didn’t matter much that the team that for so long had been a Big East favorite—in every sense of the word—wouldn’t win the title in its final farewell.

The ACC has lured Syracuse away with football wealth, meaning this likely marked the Orange’s final stop at the Garden in March for a long, long time. Boeheim had a peculiar way of saying goodbye.

“Most national championships—not all but a lot of them have been won by teams that lose in their conference tournament, including us. So as much as we want to win this tournament, the tournament that starts next week is the only one that matters,” Boeheim said, after his team’s 11-game winning streak was brought to a spectacular halt. “Nothing else matters anymore in college basketball.”

Dion Waiters, the ethereal guard who again burst off the bench and nearly led Syracuse on a manic comeback all by his lonesome, agreed with his coach. “I mean, winning the Big East don’t mean nothing at all,” he said, after scoring 28 points and nailing 7 of 10 3-pointers. “We’re trying to win the NCAA Tournament. That’s all.”

Well, sure, that’s the goal for teams that aren’t strangers to cutting down the net, but not everyone lives in the land of champagne and honey.

MORE COLLEGE BASKETBALL

There is, for instance, Cronin, the son of a legendary Cincinnati high school coach. He took over the decimated UC program in 2006, and then found himself this season in his worst nightmare after his team’s brawl with Xavier. Cronin and school officials ultimately decided it didn’t matter if the punch or kicks connected—if any player had mere intent they were suspended (one for a game, three for six), and if they weren’t contrite, if they didn’t apologize sufficiently and embrace community service, they needn’t bother returning.

There is, for another, Gates, a prized recruit out of Cincinnati’s Withrow High who at age 16 decided he wanted to help his hometown university rebuild. He’s a senior now, with arms like cannons, and was a decent citizen until the game that changed everything. There came the haunting vision of him decking Xavier’s Kenny Frease and then looking for anyone who wanted a piece of him, and then a few days later there came his tearful apology to a nation that wondered why he snapped.

There is, for just one more example, Sean Kilpatrick, a sophomore guard out of nearby White Plains who had to rise to extreme heights when Gates and the others were suspended, and it’s during this rough time that the Bearcats showed their true mettle. They went to four guards, won all six games, their press-run-shoot-run-and rewind a perfect style of play for the energetic Kilpatrick, who doesn’t have an off button from the moment he wakes.

Slicing through Syracuse’s famed 2/3 defense Friday, Cincinnati made six of its first seven 3s, Kilpatrick with three of them. He finished with 18 points, was 6-of-9 from downtown and had a killer trey that made it 65-55 just when it looked like Syracuse was back in the flush. So don’t try telling Kilpatrick the Big East don’t mean nothing.

“Man, this is one of the best nights we’ve had as a team,” he said from his locker, as the sounds of Louisville routing Notre Dame filtered inside. “After what we’ve gone through and the way we’ve grown and learned from our mistakes, it’s really something special.”

Gates also had 18 points, making this the seventh consecutive Big East tournament game where he’s notched double figures. He had seven rebounds, acquired about an equal number of bruises and was a very large reason why Syracuse had few good looks. As a child reared in the shadow of the Bearcats, and then as a young man caught in his very worst moment while supposedly leading the Bearcats, it’s doubtful Gates would agree the Big East title doesn’t matter.

“I’m trying not to get emotional about it,” he said, while all around him his teammates were beaming. “Coming in, we thought we had a decent chance. It’s not over yet, but yeah, we’re loving it.”

FROM SI

Cronin, the coach who has always preached to his players that their actions, small and large, impact a wide circle, was so mortified and horrified after that December brawl, he said he wouldn’t have been shocked if his superiors asked him to resign. They didn’t, and he vowed to prove to the world his guys were good, decent humans. To show how far they’ve come, on a stage like the Garden, in the Big East final, against a seventh-seeded Louisville team where he once was an assistant coach … well, Cronin definitely wouldn’t say this moment isn’t huge.

After his smaller Bearcats had battled Syracuse on the glass, and stole two more balls than the Orange, and made smarter, cleaner shots, Cronin walked into the locker room, headed for the chalkboard and noticed it was already filled with scratchings.

“The guys had written 'We need to win one more' on the board. I didn't even have to write it," Cronin said. He shook his head. Really, from where they were, to now?

Yes, it’s possible. Yes, there is indeed something else that matters in college basketball.